Partnership. Part 19

Nancia watched with curiosity as General Questar- Benn drew a palm-sized card from her pocket. Forister grinned. "Brought your portable game board, I see."

The general tapped the slight indentations on the sur- face of the card and it projected a hologram of a part.i.tioned cube, shimmering with rainbow light at the edges. Another series of taps produced the translucent images of playing pieces aligned at two opposing edges of the cube. Nancia twiddled with her sensor magnification and focus until she could make out the details. Yes, those were the standard tri-chess pieces: she recognized the age-old triple ordering. p.a.w.ns in the first and lowest rank; above them, the King and Queen with their Bishops and Knights and Castles. Above them the highest rank was poised to swoop down over the gamecube, the Brainship and Brawn with their support- ing pieces, the Scouts and Hovercraft and Satellites. The images were blurred and kept flickering in and out, giving Nancia a sensation of tight bands pulled across her sensor connections if she tried to look at them for any length of time.

"p.a.w.n to Brain's Scout 4,2,w Forister grunted a standardized opening move.

Nothing happened.

"My portable set isn't equipped with voice recogni- tion," Micaya apologized. "You'll have to tap in the code."

As she indicated the row of fingertip-sized indenta- tions, Nancia hummed softly - her subst.i.tute for the rasps and hawks of "throat-clearing" with which softsh.e.l.ls began an unscheduled interruption. Both players looked up, and after a startled moment Forister inclined his head to Nancia's t.i.tanium column.

"Yes, Nancia?"

"If you'll give me a moment to study the configura- tion," Nancia suggested, "I believe I can replicate your play-holo with a somewhat clearer display. And I, of course, can supply the voice recognition processing."

Even as she spoke, she a.s.signed a virtual memory s.p.a.ce and a graphics co-processor to the problem.

Before the sound of her voice had died away, a new and much clearer holographic projection shimmered beside the original one. Forister exclaimed in delight at the perfect detailing of the miniaturized pieces; Micaya put out her hand as if to touch a perfectly shaped litde Satellite with its three living and storage globes, complete with tiny access doors and linking s.p.a.cetubes.

"Beautiful," Forister sighed in delight. "But won't this take too much processing capability, Nancia?"

"Not when we're just sitting dirtside," Nancia told him. "I don't even use that processor when we're doing regular navigation. Might have to shut down briefly when we're in Singularity, that does take some concentration, but- "

Forister closed his eyes briefly. "That's perfectly all right, Nancia. To tell you the truth, it never occurred to me to play tri-chess in Singularity anyway."

"Me either," said Micaya, looking slightly green at the very thought. "You don't want to think about spa- tial relationships at a moment like that"

"I do," said Nancia cheerfully.

Less than two Central Standard Hours later, Sev in- terrupted the first tri-chess game to deliver a subdued Darnell Glaxely-Overton for transport to Central. "He 214.

215.

broke when I showed him the hedron of Hopkirk's evidence," he told the others after Darnell had been confined in a cabin. "Funny - almost as if he'd ex- pected somebody to come after him one of these days.

Spent most of the flyer trip back telling all he knows about the other three. Here's the recording.''

"Four," Nancia corrected Sev as he slid a datacard into her reader.

"Three," Sev said again. "Fa.s.sa. Alpha. And . ..

Blaize." He carefully avoided looking at Forister as he p.r.o.nounced the last name.

"Neither of them has said anything implicating Polyon de Gras-Waldheim?'' Nancia couldn't believe this.

Sev shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe there isn't any- thing to say. You never know, there could be one good apple in this barrel of rotten ones."

Not Polyon. But Nancia refrained from voicing her protest. After the conversations she'd heard on her maiden voyage, she was convinced that Polyon de Gras-Waldheim was completely amoral. But would it be ethical to reveal those conversations? Caleb had been so adamantly against anything that even sug- gested spying, she'd never even thought of telling him.

But that had been five years ago. She had changed; she now saw shades of gray instead of the neat black and white of CS rules. Even Caleb might have changed; after all, he'd consented to this undercover mission.

Under protest He might feel doubly betrayed if she chose to violate his ethical code when he wasn't even here to censure her for it.

Perhaps she could put off the decision for a little longer "It might be worth going by Shemali anyway,"

Nancia suggested. "You never know. We might find some evidence linking de Gras-Waldheim with the rest I.

of the crew." We'd have that evidence already, if they weren't -}: oft terrified to say a ward against him.

"Possibly," Sev agreed. "Meet me there, after An- galia?"

"I thought you were coming with us!" Micaya Ques- tar-Benn half rose from her seat, putting one hand right through Nancia's tri-chess hologram.

"I was," Sev agreed. "I am. I'll meet you on Shemali.

Something's come up."

He was gone before any of them could question him, taking the stairs three at a time and whistling as he went. Nancia briefly considered slamming her lower doors on him and holding him until he ex- plained exacdy what he was up to.

She wouldn't do that, of course. It would be an un- ethical and unconscionable abuse of her abilities, the sort ofbullying she'd been warned against in the ethics cla.s.ses that were pan of every sh.e.l.lperson's training.

But it was a sore temptation.

"Something," Micaya said thoughtfully, "has made that young man extremely happy. I wonder what it was. Nancia, is there anything earth-shaking in that datacard of Darnell Overton-Glaxer/s testimony?"

Nancia had started scanning just before Micaya spoke. "There isn't even anything interesting," she said, "unless a sordid record of petty bribes and cor- ruption and bullying fascinates you."

"Ah. Overton-Glaxely did strike me as the cheap sort"

"You might want to examine his statement your- self," Nancia suggested. "You may see something I've overlooked."

Micaya nodded. "I'll do that. But I doubt I'll find anything. Bryley said there wasn't any evidence against de Gras-Waldheim, so whatever is taking him to Shemali, it can't be our business. d.a.m.n that boy!

Oh, well, I suppose we'll find out when we reach Shemali."

216.

&f "But first," Forister said, "we have a task to complete at Angalia." His face was gray and still again; the momentary animation brought on by the tri-chess game had vanished. He looks like a man with a deadly dis~ ease. Is family honor so important to him ? Nancia wondered how she'd feel if her sister Jinevra were found to have corrupted her branch of PTA and embezzled the department's funds.

Impossible even to imagine such a thing. Well, then, what if Flix - she couldn't think what Flix might do, either, but what if he had got in with the wrong crowd - like Blaize - and had done something that would force her to hunt him down, arrest him, send him to Central for years of prison without his beloved musk?

The pain of that thought shook Nancia so deeply that for a moment the even hum of the air stabilizers was broken and the co-processor handling the tri- chess hologram faltered. The gamecube image shivered, broke apart in rainbow fractures, then solidified again as Nancia gained control of herself and her systems.

If even imagining Flix in trouble hurt her so deeply, how could Forister face the reality of Blaize's crime?

He couldn't, she decided, and it was up to her and Micaya to distract him whenever possible.

"General Questar-Benn, it's your move," she said.

"What? Oh-Scout to Queen's Bishop 3,3," Micaya said. The move took one of Forister's Satellites and left a probability path to his Brains hip. Nancia calculated the possible moves without conscious effort.

"You have only two moves that will not put your Brainship in check within the next five-move se- quence," she warned Forister.

"Two?" Forister's eyebrows shot up and he bent over the gamecube. "I saw only one."

"Foul!" Micaya complained. "I challenged the brawn, not the brain. **217.

"We work as a team," Nancia told her.

She certainly hoped that was true. For Forister's sake - for both their sakes. He didn't need to get through this grief alone; she was there to steady him.

"Ah. I see what you mean." Forister bent over the board and surprised Nancia with a third move, one so apparently disastrous that she had not even con- sidered it in her initial calculations.

With a subdued whoop of glee, Micaya Questar- Benn took Forister's second Satellite - and watched dumbfounded as he proceeded to shift an uncon- sidered knight from the second rank and place her Brainship in check.

"Thank you for the hint, Nancia," Forister said.

"Until you forced me to consider the alternative move, I hadn't even thought of using the Jigo Kanaka ad- vance in this situation."

"I ... ah ... you're quite welcome," Nancia managed to tell him between the three subsequent moves that brought the game to its slashing con- clusion, with Micaya's forces immobilized, her Brawn taken and her Brainship checkmated.

Perhaps Forister didn't need quite so much help as she'd antic.i.p.ated.219.

* CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Nancia's landing on Angalia was one of the worst she'd ever executed. The planet took her completely by surprise.

Initial navigation maneuvers went normally. It wasn't until she was in visual range of the landing field that she became confused. The green terraced cliffs behind the mesa and the gra.s.sy basin surrounding it looked nothing at all like her memories of the landing five years ago. Could she possibly have miscalculated, come down in some hitherto unknown section of the planet?

Nancia called up her files from that first landing and superimposed the stored images on the green paradise below her. Yes, this had to be the Angalia landing field. The topographical features were a per- fect match with her internal map. And there, at the edge of the mesa, was the plastifilm prefab hut with its sagging awning of woven gra.s.s, looking if anything slightly more derelict and tottering than it had ap- peared five years ago.

Intent on her image comparison, Nancia drained computing power from the navigation processor, forgot to monitor the approach, and came embarra.s.s- ingly close to making a new crater on Angalia's landing field. She corrected the descent, hopped into mid-air, and came down more slowly the second time. Her auditory sensors picked up a variety of crashes, groans, and complaints from the cabins where Micaya and the three prisoners were housed.

"Apologies for the rough landing," she began, but Forister cut off her speakers for a moment and over- rode her. "Local turbulence," he said. "Nancia recovered superbly, but even a brainship can't com- pensate for all the freak conditions on Angalia."

He swept his open hand over the palmpad with a caressing gesture, restoring speaker control to Nancia, and smiled at her benignly.

"I didn't need you to cover for me," Nancia trans- mitted a vibrant whisper through the main cabin speakers.

"Didn't you? I thought we were a team. If you can help me play tri-chess, I certainly have the right to preserve you from apologizing to those overindulged brats."

"I - well, thank you," Nancia conceded.

"Think nothing of it. By the way, what did happen just now?"

"I was distracted. This place doesn't look the way it did last time I landed." Nancia switched all her screens to external mode. Forister gazed appreciatively at the triple-screen display of a gra.s.sy paradise ringed by flowering terraces.

"What on earth is that?" Fa.s.sa cried from her cabin.

Darnell and Alpha joined her exclamations of surprise.

Nancia was gratified by this response. The screens in the pa.s.senger cabins weren't as dramatic as her central cabin's display walls, but at least they showed enough of Angalia to confirm that she wasn't losing her mind - or if she was, she wasn't alone. None of the prisoners had been expecting Angalia to look like the Garden of Eden.

"Do I take it," she asked mildly, "that the planet has changed since your last visit?"

"It certainly has," Fa.s.sa said. "Are you sure it's the same place? Only last year - oh, I see."

A prolonged silence followed. For once in her life Nancia longed for a softperson's physical extrusions.

220.

AttneMcCaffrey & It would be enormously satisfying to take Fa.s.sa by the shoulders and shake her out of the trance in which she had fallen. MP%y couldn't softpersons keep transmitting datastreams while they were processing?

She had to content herself with blinking Fa.s.sa's cabin lights and a.s.saulting her with raucous bursts of music from Flix's latest sonohedron.

"Do I take it," she inquired when satisfied that she had the girl's attention, "that you recognize some salient features?"

"Yes... I think so, anyway." Of course, Fa.s.sa would have no control over the visual detail, not to mention the accuracy, of whatever images she'd stored from her previous visit. She would be dependent on whatever her non-enhanced biological memory could provide. Recognizing this, Nancia didn't count on learning much.

"Those gardens on the side of the mountain," Fa.s.sa said. "He had the terraces in place a year ago, but nothing was planted. I thought it was something to do with the mine."

Nancia switched the signals going to Fa.s.sa's display screen to show the mine entrance. Blue-uniformed figures moved in and out, pushing wagons on railings that curved around the side of the mountain. A mag- nified display showed that the figures were shambling Angalia natives, neady dressed in blue shorts and shirts and working together with the precision of a ch.o.r.eographed dance. One native heaved a sack from the mine entrance and tossed it over his head; another casually moved into place just in time to catch it; by the time he'd turned, a third native had backed his wagon down the rail system and into place to receive the load.

"Amazing," Nancia commented. "I thought the An- galians couldn't be trained."

"Blake," Forister said hollowly, "has certainly been a busy little boy."221.

"It doesn't look all that bad so far," Nancia pointed out * Fa.s.sa, do you - or the others - recognize any- thing else?"

She let the display screens sweep over a panoramic view of the mesa and the surrounding countryside.

Suddenly Fa.s.sa gave a cry of recognition. "Oh, G.o.d, he's left the volcano!"

Nancia halted the display and studied it. An evil- looking bubble of brown and green mud heaved and burst and formed again, roiling continuously in the midst of the tall gra.s.s covering the rest of the basin.

"I don't suppose planting flowers would do much to disguise it," she agreed.

"You don't understand." Fa.s.sa sounded close to tears. "That's how he controls them - how he makes them do things for them. If the Loosies don't please him, he cooks them alive in that boiling mud! I saw it done last time - I'll never forget those screams."

"Alpha? Darnell?" Nancia queried the other two.

"That's right," Darnell told her. "Revolting."